


The Fate of the Hero

by joshuaorrizonte



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Child Death, Drama, F/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joshuaorrizonte/pseuds/joshuaorrizonte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, Link chooses a life of peace at Lon Lon Ranch. But the happy ending he wanted isn't to be...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fate of the Hero

When he’s nine, he comes to the ranch.

And he is  _ frantic _ .

This boy, with sunkissed hair, beautiful sapphire sky eyes, and wearing forest green, knows her name. He knows her father’s name, and even Ingo’s. He knows Epona’s song, and claims- hesitatingly, and she wonders why- that he’s a Kokiri, on a mission from the Great Deku Tree. He needs to get to Hyrule Castle, as quickly as possible. And it just so happens that she’s about to go to Castle Town with her father to deliver milk.

Ingo thinks it’s creepy, that he knows all this about his employer and his employer’s daughter, and Talon isn’t sure what to make of any of it. But she says, even as Ingo rolls his eyes and Talon tries to shush her, “I believe you.”

“You- you do?”

She nods. “I’ve never met a Kokiri before,” she says slowly, “but don’t the stories say that the Kokiri are honest people? And you have honest eyes.” He blushes slightly, and she nods. “He can come with, father. What’s your name, fairy boy?”

“Link.”

“Link,” she repeats, as if she’s tasting the name. It resonates with her soul, and he’s staring at her intently. Then, he looks relieved as she smiles and holds out a hand. “I’m Malon- but you knew that, didn’t you? You can ride with me in the wagon!”

When they arrive in Castle Town, Link takes off, thanking them for their kindness and asking them to please wait for him, please, please, he’ll be as fast as he can, and he runs off right for the castle. Talon rubs the back of his head. “What a strange boy.”

“He’s so nice,” Malon gushes. 

Talon gives her a look, but says nothing about that. “Well, time to go sell the milk. We’ll do what he asks and wait for him, but if he’s trying to get in to see the King, he might be waiting a while. Do we have enough rupees to spend the night at an inn?”

Malon unslings a pouch from her waist and opens it, peering in at the gems inside. “More than enough,” she says with a nod, and then takes Epona’s bridle to guide her into the city. 

Their afternoon goes by quickly, and they find themselves waiting outside of a nice inn, watching the townspeople go about their business. Talon and Malon talk to each other, and Malon smiles at how hard Talon is trying to stay awake for her sake. Her’s and the fairy boy’s.

She calls him that, and Talon snaps awake. “Ah yes, he’s a Kokiri, he said? But isn’t it a little strange? Don’t all of the Kokiri have guardian fairies?”

Malon shrugs, draws in the sand beneath the stairs to the inn with a finger. “Maybe his fairy is shy.”

“A shy fairy? Whoever heard of a shy-”

Their conversation is interrupted by a ruckus towards the castle. Malon and Talon look at each other in surprise, and run with everyone else to see what’s going on. They shove through the crowd to get a good look through the gate and look upon the scene.

Talon points. “That’s Ganondorf, the leader of the Gerudo. They’re a desert people. He’s here on a goodwill visit from the Gerudo, but something’s-” 

His voice cuts off in a gasp. “What? Father, what is it?”

“Here. Let me put you on my shoulders so you can see.”

Before she can take this in- he  _ never _ puts her on his shoulders anymore- Talon is lifting his daughter and settling her legs over his shoulders. She holds on tight as she watches the scene. “Can you see better?”

“I- I can! It looks like Link is- is standing with the Princess, and the King is out, with all of his guards, saying something. He’s angry. The Gerudo man, that Ganondorf guy, he’s kneeling in front of him with his own people, and they’re all talking. They’re getting louder- Oh! Now the captain of the King’s guard is in front of the King, and he’s drawing his- oh,  _ no _ . Please don’t fight. Please…”

And then she falls silent as the young Kokiri boy named Link steps in front of them both, his own small sword drawn in front of him. His voice, clear as a bell, rings through the castle’s courtyard. “You’re a liar, Ganondorf,” he says in a dark voice. “I know so much about you because I’m telling the truth. I am the Hero of Time chosen by the Master Sword and it doesn’t matter what you do, because in the end, I will defeat you. Every. Time.”

Talon cranes his head to look up at his daughter, and she looks down on him, her mouth open in shock. That boy, the hero chosen by the Master Sword? But he was so young, and so small- From the ground, Ganondorf sneered, “Your Majesty, he’s lying. He hasn’t offered one shred of proof to his outrageous accusations.”

“I am inclined to disagree,” the King said coldly. “There’s my daughter’s dreams about you. Sage or not, that alone isn’t enough to justify suspicion. Then there’s this boy, with the Kokiri emerald, knowing both the royal family’s lullaby and the Song of Time, and knows of the existence of the Ocarina of Time and how to unlock the Sacred Realm and retrieve the Master sword.”

“Don’t you see? That boy is a traitor! How else would he know-”

“He would know because things happened exactly as he claimed they did!” Princess Zelda yells over him.

“Indeed, his story, as fantastic as it is,” the King says, “is more likely than the idea that he seeks to overthrow the kingdom. Between these two children, I’m afraid I have to take their accusations seriously.”

“This is an outrage! Your Majesty-”

“Your Majesty!” calls a voice from off to the side. A troop of soldiers run into the gate courtyard, and the one in front is carrying something. “We carried out a search of Ganondorf’s lodgings, as you ordered.” Ganondorf goes pale, starts to shake slightly, but says nothing.

The King doesn’t take his eyes off the kneeling man before him. “And?”

“We found this, Your Majesty.”

The knight hands over a long tube of stiff parchment, rolled up tight and bound with a string. The King pulls the string and unrolls the parchment. Malon can’t see what it is from where she is, but the King drops the parchment to the ground, and his countenance ices over further. “Ganondorf. Explain yourself.”

“I… I’m not sure what-”

“Why do you have maps of the castle with guard schedules marked out?”

“I- I-...” Ganondorf staggers to his feet and points at Link. “It’s him! It’s  _ him _ ! He’s framing me for his own plot to get near you so he can-”

“Still trying to blame a child, I see. Arrest him and his retinue.”

As the guards fall on Ganondorf and his people, Link sheaths his sword and turns back to the King and Princess, and they’re talking softly, far too softly to be heard over the hooting and howling of the crowd at the gate and the shouts of outrage from the Gerudo. The Gerudo are led away and the King, Princess, and Link go back into the castle, flanked by guards, and the crowd begins to disperse, chittering amongst themselves excitedly.

Talon lets Malon down from his shoulders and puts her back on the ground. “Well. This is… Well. I guess we know why he was so desperate to get to Castle Town now,” Talon says, taking his daughter’s hand and following the crowd back into the town. 

“Do you think that boy is really the Hero of Time?” Malon asks excitedly.

“If he knows everything we heard just then, he may very well be the Hero of Time.”

“I wonder if he knows us, then.”

“I think it’s safe to say he does,” Talon replies with a chuckle. “He did know our names and all about your pony Epona. I hope he comes back to the inn tonight. I have a lot I want to ask the boy.”

“You’re not the only one, father,” Malon says, looking over her shoulder at the castle gate. Things are starting to calm down. “You’re not the only one.”

He doesn’t return that night, but he’s escorted to the inn bright and early with Impa, the Princess’s own attendant, and a full wallet of rupees. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back last night,” Link says, almost sheepishly. “The King and Princess had a lot of questions for me.”

“I can imagine,” Talon says, extending a hand to him. Link goes to him, and Impa hangs back, palming a wallet brimming full as well. “We watched the commotion from the front gate. That was some performance you put on, my boy.”

Link blushes, and their attention turns to Impa as she clears her throat. “I have here a purse for you as payment for this boy’s passage with you,” she says, handing the wallet to Talon. “Payment and thanks. Who knows what would’ve happened if he hadn’t gotten here in time?”

“I know,” Link chirps, and Impa laughs, although the sound is uncomfortable. He blushes again and ducks his head towards Malon, who is laughing quietly as well, not quite understanding the weight of the situation. 

Talon and Impa are talking, discussing Link and the things that happened yesterday, but Malon beckons Link to the wagon, and they sit in the places they’d taken during the previous day’s journey. “I want to know everything you know about me, about the ranch,” Malon says, her eyes shining.

Link’s face goes somber. “You might not like what I have to say.”

The enthusiasm fades, but only slightly. “I might not like it, but you- if you know something that can help us, then I-”

He cuts her off with a nod. “I’ll tell you about your role in my journey.”

* * *

He leaves with Epona after three days. He says he needs to find someone he lost in time when he was sent back after defeating the evil beast lord Ganon. And then Malon doesn’t see him again until he’s eleven.

At first, she doesn’t recognize him, or Epona. They look just like traveling visitors, and she straightens in her sweeping and sets the broom aside to go to him. He looks around and, seeing her, walks Epona over to her. As she’s welcoming him to the ranch, his face breaks out in a grin. “Malon, don’t you recognize me?”

It takes a moment, but then she gasps. “Link! Welcome h-” She stumbles over the word, recovers, and says, “Welcome back! Did you find who you were looking for?”

“No,” he answers, his grin fading slightly, and he dismounts. “I don’t think I will. Listen, I…”

He searches for words. It’s a habit that Malon remembers, vaguely, from their brief time together before Link left on his journey to find his friend. She has the sense that speaking doesn’t come easily to the boy. “I have no home and nowhere to go,” he says finally. “I was raised by the Kokiri but I’m not Kokiri. I’m Hylian. My parents died when I was a little baby. I have nowhere to go. Do you have room here? I can work for you.”

She looks him over, surprised to hear all of this. “We can always use another pair of hands, but are you sure you have nowhere to go? I’m sure the King would take you in if you went back there.”

“I’m sure he would too,” Link says dryly, looking back over at Epona, “but I’d rather not. I’m… I’m done fighting. I won’t do it anymore. I  _ can’t _ .” He looks back at Malon. “Please. I can wait while you ask Talon, if you want to.”

“No, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” she says, smiling in what she hopes is a reassuring way. She extends a hand to him. “Come on, though. We can tell Father that you’ve come back together. He’ll be excited to see you! And I want to hear all about your adventures away from us-”

“I’d rather not.”

The statement was so firm, so matter of fact, and he had planted his feet firmly, so she couldn’t tug him along. She looked back at him, mouth open, into his honest sapphire sky eyes, and they were dark and haunted. 

It wasn’t worth pushing him over. “Alright, then. We can just go tell Father you’re here and you want to be part of the ranch. I’m sure he’ll be fine with taking you in.”

Talon was absolutely chuffed to take Link in. “My good boy,” he said, pounding Link on the back. Link coughed a little bit at it, but otherwise didn’t react. “You’re more than welcome here, more than welcome. We could use another set of good, strong hands. Malon, you show the boy around, hmm? Ingo will get his room set up. Ingo! Over here, my good man. I need you to clear out one of the storage rooms…”

Malon giggled and took Link’s hand. She felt him tense up, but didn’t resist her again as she pulled him off to show him around the ranch. “Not,” she said, as they walked out into the pasture, “that you need it, I’m sure.”

Link shake his head. “It’s been two years. I should probably at least refresh my memory.”

That night, Link eats at Talon and Malon’s table, next to Malon. Link holds his peace and focuses on his meal- the first home-cooked meal he’s had in literally years- and keeps an attentive ear on the conversation, listening for things he should know if he’s going to be working there. The cuccos have been uppity lately, and the cows seem to be a bit unhappy, but that’s nothing that a bit of soothing music can’t fix for them. Link has the feeling that he’s going to be playing the Ocarina of Time an awful lot.

And then, after helping a bit with the end of day chores, Malon shows Link to his room, right across from hers. It’s a small room, little more than a glorified closet, but there’s a nice bed of straw and cucco feathers, and it’s comfortable and warm. There’s little space, but enough for him to gather some personal items, like clothes and such. His weapons, he packs away in a big chest that he puts at the foot of his bed. He never intends to even look at them again, but he can’t bring himself to throw them out or sell them.

He catches on easily and quickly, and it seems like no time at all until he’s almost as good a rancher as Ingo and Talon are. He’s got a lot to learn, but he learns it eagerly and well, and Malon admires him for it. It’s almost as if he was born to do just this.

But they get reminders, every night in the middle of the night, that he was born to fight, not to raise horses and cows. He wakes screaming every night, as if someone was trying to murder him in his bed. At first, Talon goes to him. That first night, Malon jumps out of bed as well and rushes across the hall to Link’s room, and bursts in. She barely has the chance to take in the scene before Talon waves her out sternly: Link is sitting up and clinging to Talon as he sobs, almost hysterical. 

She doesn’t think Link has noticed her when she goes back to her room. But she can’t sleep. Not with Link across the hall, crying like that.

After a week of this, Link screams in his sleep again, and doesn’t stop. And then he stops suddenly, the shouts dissolving into tears, and Malon doesn’t sleep that night, either.

She’s awake at first light, with Talon. She peeks into Link’s room. He’s still sleeping. The cuccos haven’t crowed yet, so she’s got time to seek her father out.

“You let him just cry?” she says, when she enters the kitchen.

Talon looks upset, too, but is calm when he says, “He asked me to, lass. This is embarrassing for him. He wants to try to overcome it on his own.”

Link says nothing about it when he gets up in the morning. He never says anything about it. 

After a while of this, and Link’s night terrors don’t abate, Malon can’t take it anymore. She flings her covers off and rushes across the hallway, intending to wake him up. She can’t just let him suffer like this! He’s shouting at someone, someone named Navi, but that name is all Malon can make out. She sits on the side of his bed, takes him by the shoulders, and calls his name out, her face close to his ear.

He flails.

His closed fist catches her across the cheek. Malon cries out and tumbles to the floor, and then Link is awake and holding his breath, staring down at her in open horror, and then Talon is in the room and so is Ingo. Link is crying, apologizing, frantic, he didn’t mean to hit her, he didn’t know she was there, he  _ didn’t mean to hit her _ ! But Ingo isn’t hearing it, furious, and Talon’s fussing over Malon, still on the floor.

“ _ Be quiet! _ ” Malon yells over the three men. All of them fall silent, although Link is hiccuping back more sobs.

She meets Ingo’s angry, worried gaze, and says, “He was fast asleep when he did that. I should’ve known better than to try to wake him up by touching him.” Then she climbs to her knees on the side of the bed and looks up at him. “I’m sorry, Link.”

“I… It’s… It’s alright,” he manages to gasp out. She moves out of the way as he swings his legs out of the bed and stands. “I need some air,” he mutters, grabbing his cloak and ocarina off a shelf near the bed.

Malon starts to follow. “Let him go, lass,” Talon says, but she shrugs him off. The back door to the house opens and shuts and Malon stays by the door, listening. In a second, Link begins playing his ocarina, and Malon closes her eyes, rests her head against the doorjamb, and just listens.

At a break in the song, Malon opens the door and steps through. Link startles a little, but doesn’t turn around. “That was pretty,” she says quietly. 

“It’s called the Requiem of Spirit,” Link says without looking at her. “I’m sorry, Malon.”

“I shouldn’t have touched you,” she replies, coming to stand next to him. “I’m the one who owes you an apology.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Malon lies. Being hit by him certainly did hurt, and she’s sure it’s going to leave a mark. It hurts even as they’re talking. But she doesn’t want him to know, not while he’s still distraught over it. It occurs to her that he’s going to work himself up again in the morning when he sees the damage he did, if it did. But she still can’t bring herself to tell him that he hurt her.

They stand in silence, and finally, Link speaks again. “I  _ am _ sorry, whether you think I owe you an apology or not. I never want to hurt people, and- well. I’ll go, if you want me to.”

“What?” She looks at him. “Why would I want you to go?”

“I don’t want to be here if you’re going to be afraid of me.”

“Link, I’m not afraid of you!”

“I hit you, Malon!”

_ He’s really torn up about this, _ Malon thinks to herself, and then, out loud, she says, “If I can prove that I’m not afraid of you, will you stop talking this nonsense about leaving?”

He looks at her, his eyes wide in the darkness. Then he nods. “Good.” She takes him by the hand and gently, very gently, starts pulling him back to the house. 

“What are you doing, Malon?”

“Proving I’m not afraid of you. Come on, fairy boy, it’s time to go back to bed.”

Malon guides him back to his room and sits down on his bed next to him. “Back under the covers,” she orders, and then climbs under them with him. 

She can see his face flaring red in the moonlight. “Malon! What are you-”

“Would I be willing to sleep in the same bed as you if I was afraid of you?” she cuts him off, smiling. “Go to sleep, Link. If your nightmares come to bother you again, I’ll be here to fend them off for you. You’re safe here, I promise.”

“You’re crazy,” Link mumbles, but snuggles down into his pillow. Malon settles down next to him and closes her eyes, hyper-conscious of the presence of the other child next to her, but she won’t move. She refuses to move. Eventually she sinks into sleep as well, and Link doesn’t stir again that night.

* * *

Malon eventually moves her most important things into Link’s room. He still has nightmares, but they’re less fierce with Malon there next to him, and he calms and sleeps again faster with her there to pull him back to reality when he wakes in a cold terror from them.

She asks him, often, what he dreams of, and he refuses to answer every time. They’re twelve when he finally speaks of them, vaguely. “Redeads,” he says quietly, in the aftermath of one of his nightmares.

“Re-... redeads?”

She feels him nod. She’s lying in his arms, as upon waking, he grabbed her and pulled her to him, cuddling into her as if hiding behind her from the terrors that plagued his sleep. She let him do what he needed to, but she was growing more and more self-conscious about their arrangement as they grew. She would have to make a decision soon, and it was one that she hopes Link would have a voice in, but she has no idea if he’ll be willing to help her make that decision.

“Redeads,” he repeats, his voice near a whisper. “They’re monsters- undead creatures whose screams can paralyze you in terror so complete and encompassing that it feels like that terror is all you will ever know. And while you’re frozen in fear, they attack you, trying to pull your very life out of your body.”

Well, that does sound quite terrifying. “Is that what you dream of?”

“Sometimes.” He sighs. “I’m sick of this. How long am I going to remember, Malon?”

She pulls herself up to look at him. “You’ll always remember,” she says, although it hurts her heart to do so. “But the fear will fade. It already has, a little bit. Your dreams don’t seem so terrible.”

“Because of you,” he replies with a smile. “Not because they’re any less terrible. I just… I feel safer with you here next to me.”

Eventually, Link sleeps again. Malon does not.

The next morning, Malon is exhausted, and Link steers clear of her, a look of guilt on his face. Guilt for what? It takes a while, but she manages to corner him. “Alright, fairy boy,” she says, using her nickname for him to show she’s not angry, “why are you sulking about like a little boy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”

“Malon, I-...” He hesitates, looking at her with an expression that Malon thinks might be what heartbreak looks like. “Just forget what I said last night, about feeling safer with you next to me.”

“Oh, not this again.”

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

“I know that, Link. And… I was thinking about it recently, too.” He draws himself up to his full height, the heartbreak vanishing from his face, but still reflecting in his sapphire sky eyes. He’s expecting to be told off. She chuckles a little bit, and says, “You don’t have to look so serious.”

“I-I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.” She looks around. “Listen, Link… After we’re done with our evening chores tonight, come meet me by Epona. I think we should talk in private.”

“A-Alright.” Stiffly, he turns back to his task of caring for the cuccos and Malon makes her way to the barn to continue milking the cows, like she was supposed to begin with.

Sure enough, after dinner and doing his part to clean the table with Talon, Link drifts out of the house and out to the pasture. It’s going to be quite some time before Malon can join him, and she hopes that she doesn’t make him wait long as she washes the dishes from their meal, and Ingo dries them. Tomorrow, this task will fall to Link and Talon while Malon and Ingo have the easy one of merely clearing and washing the table down.

She thinks she hears Epona’s song, and smiles to herself. Link has been riding Epona more and more lately. She thinks- is afraid- that Link is getting an itch to go adventuring again. She doesn’t want him to. The thought of it makes it hard for Malon to breathe. But she won’t try to stop him if he wants to go.

Link is jumping fences when she goes out to the pasture. She hears his voice on the wind, quiet but firm, guiding Epona with the skill of someone who had been riding all of his short life. She watches him for a few moments, a feeling of warmth and well-being growing in her chest.

A warmth that abruptly goes cold. Is she in love with him? They’re only twelve! It must just be a crush. That’s all it is, a crush. But it makes it clear what she must do now.

He sees her and trots Epona over to her, and then dismounts. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“I- yes. About… about how we’re sleeping together.” She is blushing deeply already, and is grateful for the darkness. He stiffens across from her, but says nothing. “Did you mean it when you said that I make you feel safer?”

He’s quiet, almost inaudible. “Yes. I meant it.”

“Because, well… I’ve been thinking. Father talks to me in little chunks, like he doesn’t want to go into it, but he talks about… about changing bodies, and- and people our age starting to discover things like love, and-”

“Please stop, Malon.”

“No, no, this needs to be said. I- I think I have a crush on you, and I- I’m not sure it’s a good idea-”

“No, don’t do this,  _ please _ -”

“-but I want to.”

There’s a stillness in the air and he’s holding his breath. Malon’s confused by his words. What was he begging her not to do? Ruin their friendship by telling him that she has a crush on him? Don’t tell him that she was going back to her own room?

They stare at each other. Then Link puts a hand to his face and laughs quietly, sounding utterly relieved. “I want to, too,” he says, honestly. “I don’t think I’d be able to sleep without you, actually.”

“You, either?” 

“No. I’m so used to having you next to me now.”

“Oh.” So he wanted her next to him because he was used to her, huh?

He doesn’t seem to see her distress, and she isn’t eager to call his attention to it. “Well, I think I’m used to you, too,” she says, and although her voice is mild, she hopes that he catches the vicious edge to it. He doesn’t seem to, if the big smile he gives her is any indication. 

And it melts her. She decides that he likely didn’t mean it how it sounded. Link can be awkward when it comes to expressing himself. By the time they’re ready to go to bed for the night, her hurt pride is completely forgotten, and they talk deep into the night, the way they do when they’re feeling particularly close to each other.

They talk like that the next night, too.

* * *

The first time they kiss, they’re fourteen. Malon still hasn’t gone back to her own room, even though Link hasn’t woken up screaming in nearly a year. And so, Talon and Ingo both tell them that it’s time for them to have  _ that _ conversation again. This time, Talon pulls no punches. They’re teenagers now, not children. If it is at all possible for Link to cope without Malon next to him, it’s time for her to sleep in her own bed again. 

It is not a conversation Malon wants to have. Link doesn’t seem to want to have it, either, and they both refuse to talk about it before they’re safely snuggled into bed next to each other. So far, Link has managed to make a mess of the conversation. He stutters a lot, more than he usually does, and he pauses between every sentence he says, looking at her as if waiting for some manner of approval or sign that it’s alright for him to keep talking. And he’s talking in circles. He doesn’t  _ want _ her to go back to her own room because he  _ does _ feel safer and more secure with her there, but if she wants to go, she can, although he thinks that if she did she’d have said something sooner, but maybe not, because wouldn’t she have said something before this if she did? But what if she was grinning and bearing it because he feels safer and more secure with her there? Of course, if she  _ wants _ to leave…

She finally can’t take anymore and puts a hand against his mouth. He quiets immediately, his eyes crossing to look at her hand and then back up at her, and she can feel him grin sheepishly beneath her palm. “You’re not making any sense, Link,” she says when she’s sure he’s gotten the hint, and takes her hand away. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Because of the nightmares?” Talon won’t be happy with that, but he’ll deal with it. Ingo might be a problem, but Ingo isn’t her father. 

“Yes. No. Kind of?”

She makes a quiet, frustrated noise at him. She’s used to his idiosyncrasies, but even she has her limits and she’s reaching them. This conversation, however unpleasant, should’ve been simple and quick and he’s dancing around the question as if his life depended on it. She didn’t want to leave his bed either, in part because of the nightmares. She’s stood as his shield against them for so long now that she doesn’t want to risk leaving him defenseless against them again.

But she also doesn’t want to leave for the exact reason Talon wants her to. They’re both still young, very young, and she still doesn’t want to call it anything but a crush. But she’s developing into a young woman now, and attraction has found its way into her blood, and being so close to him sends a thrill through her that she relishes. 

She has no way of knowing what he’s thinking. He’s grown shielded as he’s gotten older. She can tell by his speech patterns when he’s nervous or upset- and this is pretty obvious, she thinks, even to people who don’t know him as well as she does- but not what he’s thinking. It doesn’t help that the moonlight in his sapphire sky eyes isn’t bright enough for her to try to read the emotions in them.

But she doesn’t have a chance, because a moment after that unhappy noise she made, Link closes his eyes, leans down into her, and presses his lips hesitantly to hers.

She’s stunned by this revelation, but not stunned enough that she doesn’t kiss him back.

They break, and stare at each other in the darkness, their faces only inches away from each other. Before he could apologize, because she could see it in his face, she leaned up and kissed him again. This time, when they broke away, Link was smiling. “Does this mean you’re not going back to your own room?”

“Of course not,” she says, teasingly scoffing. “You need me here to help with the nightmares, don’t you?”

“Your father isn’t going to like this.”

“He hasn’t liked it since we started doing it, but as long as we’re just  _ sleeping _ he’ll be alright with it. I think.”

He laughs and settles down in the bed, snuggling in the blankets and against her. She snuggled back. “Good night, Malon,” he said, sleepily.

“Good night, fairy boy.”

* * *

They’re sixteen when they first make love, although Link insists that they’re to be praised for their restraint until then. Sharing a bed with one’s lover and not making a move? That’s some excellent self-control right there. Malon laughs at him, and they lean into each other, foreheads together. “Go tend to your cuccos, loverboy,” she says quietly, teasingly.

“I’d rather milk the cows.”

“Go tend to your cuccos,” she repeats, and they push away from each other to go carry out their duties for the day. And Talon is none the wiser, or so they wanted to believe. In reality, Ingo and Talon discuss how much closer the two of them suddenly seem, and Ingo wants to have Link thrown out of the ranch. Talon has the much cooler, more mellow head, and observes that Link has as much of a place there now as Ingo himself had, and that if they are truly in love, Talon couldn’t ask for a finer young man for Malon to fall for.

That changes, one Spring day when they’re seventeen, when Link and Malon summon Talon from one of his naps, needing to speak with him. Urgently. They meet in the cucco pen, Malon sitting on the chair Link has for when he wants to rest in his duties or just watch his birds for a while. Link stands at her side, hand on her shoulder, and she reaches up to lay her hand over his as Talon approaches them. “Well,” Talon says, looking from his daughter to his employee and back, “you two can’t look anymore serious than you do. I’m almost scared to ask what’s going on.”

He’s got a sinking feeling that he already knows very well what’s going on, but he will give them a chance to prove him wrong. They look at each other, and some unspoken communication passes between them, because Link shakes his head and looks away. “Father,” Malon says haltingly, “I- we- we’re having a baby.”

“You’re  _ what _ ?” It was what he expected, but that doesn’t change the cold anger that grips his heart as he turns his gaze to Link. “You got my daughter  _ pregnant _ ?”

Malon stands, abruptly enough that Link’s chair topples and he backs up a step in surprise. “Don’t do that, Father,” Malon says sternly, carefully standing between Talon and Link. “He didn’t get me  _ anything _ . I was involved in this. We did it together.”

“You’re too young for this, Malon!”

“And yet it’s done,” she retorts. “We need you to be on our side, because we  _ are _ very young. And I don’t know what I’m doing and Link  _ certainly _ doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Hey!” Link protests. He’s ignored.

Talon stares at them both, hard, for several heartbeats, before he nods. “Yes… Yes, it’s done. Yelling at you about it now will do no good. By the Goddesses, I should have made you go back to sleeping in your own room long ago. I knew letting you and Link make that decision for yourselves would backfire on us. I’m sorry for that much. No, relax, I’m not going to separate you now, of course not. That would be pointlessly punitive. But you will work for your upkeep, Link, yours and her’s when she can no longer work, and you both will work for your baby. You have decided that you’re adult enough to do this thing, then you are adult enough to deal with the consequences.”

He pauses, looking from one of them to the other. Link has come up next to Malon again, and nods, his face betraying nothing of what he’s feeling right now. He’s closed up, as he tends to get when he’s emotional and around anyone but Malon. He lets her see him as he is, and Talon has seen it when they don’t know he is near enough to see it. 

But Malon says, “Haven’t we been doing that already? Don’t worry about us. Nothing’s changed in that regard.” Something flashes in Link’s sapphire sky eyes- concern?- but he does nothing but nod, putting a hand on Malon’s shoulder again. 

Ingo, when he hears, is not so forgiving, to any of them. “I cannot believe you’re allowing this to continue!” he snaps at Talon, over dinner that night. “We may disagree on how to run the ranch but this is entirely different! You’ve been completely irresponsible about it since they started sleeping in the same bed together and now they’ve gone and done something irresponsible that they can’t take back! I say you throw the boy out. You’ll have stronger and better men scrambling to take his place here.”

“No, you can’t do that!” Malon cries, even as Link puts his fork down and stares at Ingo in hurt. He knows that Ingo has never had any love for him, but does he hate him so much as to want him thrown out when his lover needs him the most?

“And why not, Miss Malon? He’s taken advantage of your father’s hospitality at every turn-”

Talon is begging them to all calm down, that no one’s getting thrown out, but Malon doesn’t seem to hear him. “Because I love him, Mr. Ingo! And he hasn’t taken advantage of anything! He’s worked just as hard as the rest of us have, and this is his  _ home _ !”

“Malon,” Link says, very quietly, but even though Ingo is raising his voice in response to Malon’s outburst, Malon hears him, and turns to him. “Did- did you mean that?”

It isn’t hard to guess as to what he’s referring to. “Yes, I did. I meant it. I love you, Link.” She’s near tears suddenly, as if she’s just realizing that he might not feel that strongly for her, too. She isn’t sure what she’ll do if she just made a fool of herself.

But a smile spreads across Link’s, a bigger smile than Malon’s ever seen on his face before. She braces herself to be laughed at, but he reaches over and pulls her into his arms, and he’s laughing quietly, but it’s a joyful sound, not mocking.

She embraces him in return, burying her face in his shoulder, and his hand reaches up and tangles in her hair. He whispers something, too quietly for Malon to hear- it might even be just a little puff of breath- but she doesn’t need to hear him. She knows what he wants to say. 

Talon goes to Castle Town to find a physician to make sure Malon and the baby are both healthy. The physician is very optimistic, and orders Malon to take it easy. It’s too early to tell Malon to stop working altogether, but she should stop any heavy work. Ingo, still not calm from this news, angrily tells Link that he’s going to take over her share of the heavy work. Link says he will, with a straight face, but he and Malon share a look behind Ingo’s back and mock him. Talon sees it and chuckles, “Behave,” but none of them tell Ingo why, exactly, they need to behave.

The problems come when Malon decides that she wants to ride Epona. At first, she enjoys her lightened duties, but soon she grows bored, itchy to do something. Without a thought to telling anyone what she’s doing- Epona is her horse as well as Link’s, and she has a right to ride her- Malon goes out, saddles up, and goes trotting around the pasture. 

Meanwhile, in the house, Link finishes up Malon’s morning duties and goes looking for her to spend some time with her, but she isn’t in their room. Neither Talon nor Ingo knows where she is, either, and a low-grade panic hits all three of them, panic that grows in Link as they search the house and barns and don’t find her.

It’s Ingo who looks out towards the pasture, just in time to see Malon jump a fence. “Stupid girl!” he hisses, calling attention to her. Link snaps a reprimand for the insult even as his eyes fall on his lover, and he’s out the door before Talon can tell him to wait.

He’s on one of the other horses and heading for her. She slows Epona to a canter to let him catch up to her, and is surprised by his anger. “What are you  _ doing _ , Malon?” he asks, and it’s a genuine question. 

It takes her a moment to realize what’s happening, and derision flashes on her face. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“In your condition?”

“For Din’s sake, Link, I’m pregnant, not stupid! I know how to ride a horse and Epona won’t let me fall. Will you, girl?” She smoothes a hand over Epona’s mane and the horse tosses her head under Malon’s touch. “I just can’t sit around doing nothing anymore.”

“You’re not expected to sit around doing nothing. There are things you could be doing for the baby-”

“Don’t even tell me to sit around sewing baby clothes all day. Don’t you dare.”

“Someone needs to!”

“Then you do it!”

Link laughs, disbelievingly, and Malon expects his protest to be that he’s already working twice as hard as he was before she fell pregnant. Instead, he says, frankly, “I  _ can’t _ . I don’t know how to sew.”

“You don’t- then how did you repair your clothes as the Hero? Don’t tell me you never ripped your tunic or your leggings or your hat!”

“I never ripped the hat,” Link miffs, “and Navi-” He stops, pauses, and then said quieter, “Navi helped me find people who could do it for me. And if there was no one near that could do it for me, I just dealt with having ripped clothes. I had more pressing matters to deal with than ripped clothes.”

“Yes,” Malon says quietly, in sympathy. He rarely speaks of Navi, and when he does, he does in pain. “Well, I’m not going to sit around all day sewing clothes, either. I’m going to ride when I feel like it. But we can ride together, and-” here she smiles- “I can teach you how to sew. I can’t believe I haven’t noticed that you never mend your own clothes by now. You damage them so rarely that it just never occurred to me.”

He grins, a bit wolfishly. “Yes, well, fighting in ripped clothing was uncomfortable. I learned how to avoid it happening pretty well. Compared to that, not ripping them doing farm work is easy.”

They canter around the pasture together, although neither of them makes another run for the fences again, and talk. It occurs to Malon that they’re talking less, a side-effect of Link having to do all of Malon’s chores for her. While Malon has too much time on her hands now, Link doesn’t have enough. Both of them harbored feelings of anxiety about the other, something that they just realized then, in that conversation, and they promise each other to spend more time just being near each other. Link is exhausted by the end of the day, but if he needs to stay awake one more hour to ease their minds about where they stand with each other, he’ll do it, gladly.

For the first time, Malon feels like she doesn’t deserve him. He’s working so hard to make sure that they’re all happy, even Ingo, and she barely goes out of her way for him. And she can’t now. He wants her to promise that she won’t go out riding again, and she won’t do that. She knows how to ride just as well as he does, and that knowledge didn’t magically go out of her head when she conceived their child. They compromise. Link will go out with her when she wants to ride, regardless of what he’s doing at the time.

And if Talon and Ingo don’t like it, well, they’ll just have to adjust. 

Talon is fine with it. None of them are Malon’s keeper and he agrees that it’s intractably condescending to assume that she can’t take care of herself now that she’s with child. Ingo is less easy to convince, but when he realizes that what he thinks doesn’t matter either way, he gives in. “The physician  _ did _ say that she shouldn’t ride,” he adds grumpily.

“Yes, but a little bit later,” Malon says. “I’m not as far along as I have to be when I have to stop riding.”

“Just take it slowly, will you? None of us want harm to come to you or the baby, least of all you, yourself. And when it comes time for you to stop, you will stop. Am I understood?”

A shadow of anger crosses Link’s sapphire sky eyes, but he doesn’t say anything against Ingo. He’s only speaking what they all know is the truth, Malon included. “Of course,” she says smoothly, coldly. “I’m not stupid. I know what my limits are, and I’m not at them yet. This isn’t a decision for you to make, though, Mr. Ingo, it’s mine. Mine and Link’s.”

“Yes, of course,” Ingo says, almost derisively, and begins to clear the table from dinner. Malon coolly takes her place at the kitchen’s sink to wash the dishes. That’s one chore she hasn’t been forbidden from doing, at least not yet.

* * *

Time passes, and then they’re eighteen, and Malon stops riding, as she promised she would. But she is getting more and more restive, and often goes out walking with Epona at her side. Not even Link’s company is enough for her.

They begin to argue. Her pregnancy is coming along, and now she  _ can’t _ strain herself. To do so would have consequences neither of them want to face. But she can’t just stay in bed all day and all night the way Link wants her to! The physician even told them, last time he saw her, that gentle exercise would do both her and the baby good! 

But what exercise can she do on a  _ ranch _ that could even remotely be considered  _ gentle _ ? 

And the fight escalates until they’re yelling, and Link’s finally at the edge of his temper. Rather than continue to shout at each other, Link does something he hasn’t done since he was a child. He takes up his short sword and shield from the chest at the foot of their bed, and leaves. He goes on foot, not telling any of them where he’s going, and Malon cannot believe he would just up and leave like that.

None of them can.

As for Link, he heads straight for Castle Town, and then the castle. He’s exchanged letters with the Princess throughout his youth, and she is apprised of all of the going-ons at Lon Lon Ranch. He plays his ocarina for the guards, and the Princess is summoned down to the gardens, where Link is left waiting for her.

His gaze falls on her, and she smiles. “It has been a while, my hero.”

Link goes to one knee in front of her, murmuring a greeting fit for one’s Princess, and she bids him to stand and walk with her. She’s sure he didn’t come all the way from the ranch just to bow before her and say hello.

Sure enough, as soon as Zelda gets him talking, everything spills out. The fighting, the power struggle, his as of then unspoken fears of becoming a father. 

Zelda consoles him, letting him vent his anger and fear and sadness to her. She offers him one of her servants’ rooms for the night, so that they might stay together and talk into the night, if he so desires. 

And he does, but he’s afraid of what being away from the ranch all night will do for Malon’s disposition towards him. She brushes off his concern. She’ll send him home with a letter explaining that he has been with her all night, and that he stayed at her bidding. She will include a clause that Malon should feel free to ask her to join the physician, next time he comes. She wants to meet her hero’s lover.

When he returns the next day, it’s straight into another argument with Malon. She is furious, and even more so when he tells her where he spent the night. He has to convince her that nothing happened between him and the Princess before she’ll even look at the letter that the Princess wrote for her. Then she takes it and shuts herself up in their room, and Ingo and Talon and Link are left in the hallway.

Ingo and Talon look at each other, and then Talon gives Link a strange look and takes his leave of them. Ingo puts a hand on Link’s shoulder. “Let’s go. There’s a lot that was left undone when you stormed out like you did.”

They start walking, and Link’s eyebrows knit together and drop in irritation. “Are you telling me that you just ignored my chores while I was gone?”

“No, we did as much of them as we could. I owe you an apology. I didn’t realize just how much you do around here. I won’t say a word about you taking advantage of Talon again, I can promise you that much.” His voice is dryly amused, and they are in front of the barn housing the cuccos now. “Give Malon her space. I believe you when you say nothing happened- you’re too naive for anything like that- but you still left her in the middle of a fight to find comfort with another woman. Nothing erases that fact. If you’re smart, you won’t do that again.”

And then Ingo leaves him, and Link watches him until he is gone. What does he mean by that? Link doesn’t get it. Zelda is his friend, and Malon should know that. He thinks back to when they met… when they met? The second time. He shakes his head and goes into the cucco barn to do his chores. Sometimes time acts funny for him. He has trouble remembering what actually happened sometimes, especially since he and Zelda changed the flow of time itself. 

He’s the age he was at when he was awakened by Rauru. It’s not the first time he’s thought about it. It makes him feel strange sometimes, like he’s not real, or the destroyed timeline wasn’t real. It’s a disturbing sensation, and one he wishes he could put out of his head. The best he can do, though, is to tend to the cuccos and help Talon plow the fields he’s decided he’s going to try to grow pumpkins in.

He works well into the night to make up for his absence last night, and only comes in from working when Malon comes for him. They undress for bed in silence, Link keeping his gaze averted because he doesn’t understand Malon’s silence. Is she still angry with him?

She doesn’t say anything against him when he lays down next to her, though, and after a few minutes of laying next to each other in the dark, Malon speaks. “I read the letter Princess Zelda wrote me.”

“I see.”

“Did you read it?”

“No.” 

Malon snuggles closer to him, fitting herself in his arms and under his chin. “She wrote that you were friends, and that you’d come to her because you were at your wits’ end. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were frightened by becoming a father?”

He shifts slightly, to better accommodate her body in his arms. “It never crossed my mind to,” he says uneasily. “I never had a father- I never knew my father, that is. I never knew either of my parents. I was raised by the Great Deku Tree and the Kokiri. I don’t know anything about being a father. I only know how to fight and take care of ranch animals. I don’t know how to take care of a human baby.”

Malon’s quiet while he talks, and then after, and he thinks that she’s fallen asleep. But she says, almost startling him, “I don’t know how to take care of a human baby, either. I had Father, but I didn’t have my mother. This is scary for both of us, Link, so you have to promise me that we’ll be scared together.”

With candor that even Link didn’t think himself capable of, Link says, “I don’t know how to do that, either. I had Navi, and we were scared together, but Navi isn’t here.”

She squirms in his arms to look up at him. “Tell me about Navi.”

“I- what?”

“Tell me about Navi. Who was she? How did you meet her- what happened to her?” When he doesn’t respond, Malon says, stubbornly, “This Navi girl was so very important to you but I know nothing about her at all. You never talk about her but to say that she’s not here. I want to know about her, and about the Princess, and all about your journey.”

“I… Well… Navi… Wasn’t a girl, per se…” Link grimaces. “She was a fairy. All of the Kokiri have fairy guardians, but I didn’t. Navi was the fairy the Great Deku Tree sent to me to warn me about what was happening to him.”

“What… What was happening to him?”

He looks down at her, grimly. “You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

She nods. “It might do you good to talk about it. I see how haunted you look when you think no one’s around to see, but I see more than I think you want me to. I want to know why you always seem so sad beneath the surface.” When he says nothing, she says, heartbroken, “Is it really still so hard for you to trust me?”

“It’s never been hard for me to trust you,” he replies immediately, softly. “It’s hard to trust myself. I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore. But if you need to know, I’ll tell you what I remember. What I think was real.”

“That’s all I want from you, Link.”

He shifts uncomfortably, tightens his embrace around her. “Get comfortable. This is going to take a while.”

* * *

When he’s done, she’s quiet and Link is more uncomfortable than he was when he began. Talking about it didn’t help in the least. In fact, he thinks it might have hurt a little bit. When she finally speaks, what she says takes Link by surprise. “Did I really give you a cow?”

He laughs, the sound tired but relieved. That’s what she finds unbelievable about this story? “Yes, Malon, you really gave me a cow. You were so proud of yourself for it, too. I still don’t know how you got the thing up the ladder to my home in Kokiri Village.”

“Well.” She snuggles down against him tighter. “Thank you, Link. I think I understand a little better now. I’m sorry to put you through that, but I had to know.”

“I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it before now. I don’t feel any better for it, but at least now you know why… I am the way I am.”

She looks up at him. “You, mister,” she says sleepily, “are the world’s most gentle lover and greatest cowboy. Other than me, that is.” She grins up at him. “I think we should try to get some sleep now. It’s got to be the middle of the night by now. Dawn comes fast.”

He nods and tries to settle down, listening to her breathing even out and deepen as she falls into easy sleep. He’s jealous of her. If only he could just sleep away the memories…

* * *

A month later, Talon gets goats. Only four of them, but it’s still quite a bit more work for the three of them and Link can’t help but wonder resentfully why he couldn’t have waited to get the goats until  _ after _ the baby was born and Malon could fully help with the chores again. Fortunately, he has the good sense to never speak that protest aloud to anyone but Malon, who just laughs him off, albeit sympathetically, and tells him that he’ll get on with the goats as well as he gets on with the cuccos, cows, and horses, and he knows it.

But Link feels funny after that conversation and he doesn’t know why. He finds himself checking on her, and checking on her, and checking on her, and he can tell that it’s starting to grate on her, but he can’t help it. “I just have this feeling that something awful is going to happen,” he tells her after it causes an argument between them.

“You can relax, Link. I’m not going to do anything to endanger me or the baby,” she says, firmly and with a roll of her eyes, but her voice is affectionate. 

Link acknowledges her reassurance with an affirmative noise, but it’s doubtful and worried and Malon sighs, wishing that she could do something, anything, to reassure him, other than stay locked up in the house all day, and she won’t do that. She’s not suddenly some fragile flower whose petals are going to fall off at the slightest bump. 

Another month passes, and now they can all tell she’s pregnant. She  _ looks _ pregnant. She’s also starting to do less, easing herself into a more restful routine. She’s tired a lot of the time, when she’s not hungry. Link quietly takes on more of her chores, without complaint. But he’s rapidly exhausting himself, and she knows he will say nothing of his difficulties, and her father and Mr. Ingo won’t take notice of it. She asks him, almost pleads with him, to say something to them, but he refuses. It’s not so difficult, he says, and it’s not fair to Talon and Ingo for him to let them do her chores for him.

But on the morning that Link can’t drag himself to wakefulness at dawn, Malon knows she has to do something for him.

She gets up quietly, moving carefully as to not disturb him. She dresses and heads to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast, feeling good about her plan to let Link rest for a bit longer. She can collect the eggs from the cuccos, and she can milk the cows and the goats. Neither of those tasks are strenuous, and she’s certain she can handle them for one day, at least.

And maybe if she does it without difficulty, Link will back off and let her do them until it’s closer to the time to deliver the baby. 

The egg collecting goes well, and by then she’s been spotted by Mr. Ingo, who waves a greeting at her and then carries on his merry way. It is nice to realize that Link’s overprotectiveness is just that: overprotectiveness. If anyone else would have anything to say about her being out and about and working, it is Ingo. Talon would have his reservations, of course, but would defer to her and her comfort level. That not even Ingo was concerned enough to even come over and ask her if she was alright was a sign, as far as she is concerned. 

The eggs gathered and safely tucked away in their cold box, Malon starts on the milk. First she handles the cows, gentle animals who know her and let her handle them without any fuss whatsoever. That done, she moves onto the goats. 

The goats were another story altogether, and she was prepared to let Link handle them if she couldn’t do it easily. After all, they are used to Link, not her. She strokes their fur, murmuring to them in a soothing tone. The one she wants to start with is agitated, so she leaves her to go on to the next one, who lets her do what she needs to without a complaint.

Malon is able to milk both of the other goats, too, leaving just the one that wouldn’t let Malon touch her. She sits down next to him on the stool, her pail beside her, and speaks quietly but firmly to the goat, and at first it seems like the goat is going to let her do what she needs to do. 

But then the animal snaps at her, and she gets up hastily. She’s not willing to risk it. As much as she hates to leave one animal for Link to handle, out of all of them, she knows that Link would want her to be safe and simply not take the chance. Malon places a hand on the goat to calm it, before turning her back to it and heading for the barn entrance.

She feels the hoof connecting with her back like she imagines an arrow would feel thudding into her. She cries out and stumbles and falls, confused and upset. Was she really so close to the goat that it could back-kick her like that? Obviously so, she realizes in the next moment. 

And then the pain starts, and she screams. 

* * *

Link stays with her. He’s the fastest rider of them all, but Ingo isn’t far behind him and Link wants to- needs to- stay with his lover, holding her hand. In the time it took him to get to her, staggering out of bed and moving faster than he could ever remember moving before in his life, this one or his lost one, the blood seemed to be everywhere to him. He carried her, fainting in his arms, back into the house, where he told stricken Talon and Ingo that he thought one of the goats had kicked her, and to get help, as quickly as they could. 

He does his best to get her out of her bloody clothes, laying her out on cotton towels to absorb some of the blood. It doesn’t seem as bad as it did when he first saw her, but he knows better than anyone that looks can be deceiving. He can only hope that Ingo brings help in time to save her and the baby both.

But the longer they wait, the less likely it is that the baby can be saved. Link goes out, once, searching for a fairy he can ask to heal his lover, and finds one, but the fairy does her little good, and she faints from the pain once more.

By the time Ingo has brought the doctor from Castle Town, the baby is dead and they all know it, all of them except for Malon. She isn’t conscious enough to make sense of anything that’s happening right now.

Link feels no shortage of guilt for what’s happened. If he’d just gotten up when he was supposed to, this never would have happened. Talon and, much to their surprise, Ingo tries to console him. “It was no one’s fault, lad,” Talon says gently. “You burned out on the added chores and milking is something Malon knows how to handle without putting too much strain on her body. Neither of you could have predicted that animal would kick. It has never done that before, has it?”

“No.”

“Don’t…” Malon says weakly from the bed.

Link is turned back to her in a flash, her hand in his once more. “Don’t what?” he asks, holding that hand so tenderly. 

“Don’t… hurt the goat,” Malon manages to gasp. “It doesn’t know any better.”

“Of course we’re not going to hurt the goat,” Talon says, before Link can say it himself. “After all, goats have to do what goats do, We all know there’s a danger of being kicked by an animal when we get them. Just rest now, Malon.”

Malon closes her eyes and sinks into sleep again, and Link doesn’t let go of her hand. “This never should have happened,” he says, staring at Malon with dull eyes. “I should have gotten up on time. This is my fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” Talon contradicts again, frustrated and worried for them both. This is a heavy burden for them to bear, and Talon isn’t sure Link, after all he’s been through, can handle it.

* * *

The fighting starts up again. This time, they fight until they scream at each other, every time. Once, they both lose their tempers. Malon slaps Link across the face, and in return, Link punches the wall inches from Malon’s head. She sleeps in her own room that night, with Talon, and Ingo forces Link to sleep on the floor while he sleeps in Link and Malon’s bed. Neither of their father figures are keen on letting them interact after that display from them both. They came desperately close to trying to harm each other, and that’s not something any of them wants to deal with. 

They don’t fight all of the time. It is clear they are still in love, and they love each other all the more fiercely for their loss. But they also fight all the more fiercely, and while it never gets as bad as it did that one time, it frightens them all. 

One rainy night, there is a fight that doesn’t seem to have any catalyst. They are fine one minute, and arguing the next, and Link does something he hasn’t done in nearly a year: he takes his sword and shield and leaves, in the middle of the fight. Malon hopes, vindictively, that for his sake, he doesn’t go to the Princess again. It will be over between them if he spends another night away from her with another woman.

But he doesn’t go to Zelda. He goes to Saria.

He is an adult now, nearly twenty years old, and the greeting he gets in Kokiri Village is a strange one. He is recognized, and Mido is, as always, combative with him. But he’s also frightened of him, and Link can’t blame him. Mido is still a child, and will always be a child, and Link towers over him now. He’s sure he looks terrifying, with his sword and shield strapped to his back.

Indeed, the only thing stopping Mido from telling Link to go away and never come back is Saria herself. She is the Sage of the Forest, and despite Mido’s self-proclaimed leadership of the Kokiri, Saria is their true leader, and not even Mido dares to gainsay her. She greets Link warmly, looking up at him and taking his hand in her’s, and guides him to the Sacred Forest Meadow.

There, he tells her all that had happened since he left her for the second time. He told her how he had foiled Ganondorf’s plans right from the start, that he’d fallen in love with the girl from Lon Lon Ranch. That his first child had died in the womb because he had been too lazy to get up and do his chores.

She has no comforting words, no platitudes to try to raise his spirits, but she listens compassionately and weeps with him as he talks of the miscarriage. She takes him back to the village, intending to let him rest there overnight, but he refuses. Firstly, he says, amused through his sadness, he’s far too big to rest comfortably in one of the small Kokiri houses, even his own, which they’ve left alone except to dust it throughout all these years. 

Secondly, he promised Malon never to stay away from her overnight out of anger again. This isn’t anger, it’s sorrow, but he doubts the distinction will do him any good. And so, after going to his knees to hug Saria, he takes his leave of her, and the village. 

He arrives back at the ranch in the middle of the night, and, unwilling to disturb Malon, goes to sleep in her old room. When he wakes in the morning, it is to her fury. “Link, where were you last night?” she demands of him, when they both rise at first light. 

“I- I was here,” he replies, bewildered by her anger. Usually it’s ebbed by the time morning comes, for both of them. This time, though, the tide of the fight hadn’t gone out for Malon.

“No, no you weren’t,” she fumes at him, pointing at him. “You went to Zelda again, didn’t you?”

“I did not!” he snaps back, his fury of the previous night washing back over him like waves over sand. “I went to see my old friend Saria and returned here!”

Malon laughs harshly, disbelieving. “Are you kidding me, Link? Did you think you could get around your promise not to spend the night with another woman by going to Saria instead of Zelda?”

“No, it isn’t like that! I didn’t stay in Kokiri Village, Malon, I came home. You saw me come out of your room!”

“You  _ still left _ , Link! You just don’t get it!”

“I  _ had to leave _ . I was going to lose my temper otherwise.”

“Then you go ride Epona for a little bit! Jump the fences! Beat up one of the battle dummies Father set up for you! You don’t  _ leave me _ for the entire night!”

“What do you want from me?” Link demands angrily. “That isn’t what you told me last time I left. Last time I left you told me not to spend the night with another woman and I  _ didn’t _ . You never said I can’t leave at all!”

“And I didn’t say that this time. Walk away when you need to! I’m not going to stop you! Believe me, Link, I am  _ not _ going to try to stop you when you’re that angry. You’re  _ frightening _ when you’re angry. But you can’t go away for hours and hours on end and not tell me where you’re going while I’m sitting here wondering if you’re alright or if you’re even coming back!”

She hurls the statement at him like a weapon, and he parries it as if he were fighting. “Maybe I shouldn’t have!” he cries at her. “If this is the life I can expect here-”

“After everything I just said, you’re going to ask if you’re wanted here,” Malon cut him off flatly, her voice going deadly calm. 

“It’s a fair question,” he replies coldly. “All we do is fight.”

“You know, with the number of times you’ve asked me that over the years,” she says slowly, “maybe you’ve been trying to say that you don’t want to be here.”

“Malon-”

“And if that’s how you feel, then  _ go _ .”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“I don’t want to hear it, Link. You’ve spent so much time looking for an out, and I’m giving you that out. You want to know if I want you to leave? You keep asking me that, and I’m changing my answer.  _ Leave _ , Link. You want to be away from me when we fight? Then  _ go _ !”

“You don’t mean that,” Link whispers, eyes wide.

She turns away from him, walks down the hall back to their room, and closes the door behind her softly. A second later, he can hear her break down crying, sounding as if she is struggling to keep her sobbing stifled. Link stiffly goes back into Malon’s room and sinks onto the bed with his head in his hands. No one comes to him.

After about an hour of this, he rises, picks up his sword and shield, and leaves again. Talon calls after him, asking where he’s going, but he doesn’t answer. 

He goes back to Kokiri Village. Mido is surprised to see him, but Link ignores him and heads straight for the Lost Woods, drawing his weapon and walking with a determined stride. He isn’t even really sure what he’s doing. In the back of his head, the thought to return to Termina crosses his mind. He’s curious as to how everyone is. Maybe Tatl and Tael will remember him, and maybe they’ll have some insight into how to find Navi. 

He regrets leaving like he did. He should have stayed. He doesn’t  _ want _ to leave Malon. He wants her to be happy, and she hasn’t been happy since the accident. Neither has he. And he can’t shake the feeling that he just did something terrible to Malon by leaving her.

He’s quite deep in the Lost Woods now, and he turns around. He’ll go home, and tell Malon that he doesn’t want to leave, and he won’t anymore. 

After the third turn, he realizes that he’s lost. He doesn’t remember the way out anymore. It’s been too long. Fighting back panic, he calls for Saria, for Mido, for anyone. No one answers him, but somewhere not far off, he can hear Skull Kids and Deku Scrubs, and he braces himself to fight.

* * *

She resolved to tell him when he came back, but this time, he didn’t. In the depths of her soul, she knew he was never coming back, that he wasn’t  _ able _ to come back anymore. He didn’t stay away from her because he wanted to. Her worst fears were realized.

Her fairy boy hero with his sapphire sky eyes was dead. 

Ingo tried very hard to be angry with him, but Malon could tell that he knew as well as Malon and Talon did that Link wouldn’t have just walked away and not come back. Lon Lon Ranch was Link’s home, and they were his family. And, she knew even though he never said it, that he loved her. 

He should have come back and would have if he could.

That didn’t stop her from cursing him for not being there that hot night in summer as she pushed and strained with a royal physician, sent from Zelda herself, by her side. That was another indication that Link was no longer with them- Zelda hadn’t heard from him since before he left. They had been close. Malon could almost see him going to Hyrule Castle and becoming a knight of Hyrule, just to spite her, but Zelda would’ve been more than aware of that, had it happened, and Malon believed her when she told her that she didn’t know where Link was.

Finally, after hours of struggling, through a haze of exhaustion and pain, the doctor laid Malon’s newborn son at her breast. She cried, cradling the tiny bundle to her, cried for conflicting joy in her child and sorrow for what he must live without. “But you’ll know your father, little Link,” she whispered to the baby. “I’ll tell you all about him.”

The doctor and Talon both looked up in alarm as the baby ceased its wailing, but relaxed as they saw that the baby had merely snuggled down against her and was fast asleep.

Elsewhere, in the Lost Woods, the spirit of a young adventurer stirred, and the wind whistled a sad, beautiful song. 


End file.
